


last syllable of recorded time

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Winteriron Bingo 2019 [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Divergence - Iron Man 1, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Menstruation, Omega Heats are Complicated, Omega Howard Stark, Omega Tony Stark, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 03:45:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19995304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: The armour falls away, and he steps out. He stomps forward; the rooms goes black, and he kills everyone in his path, until a familiar wave of scent floods his eyes and his nose and his ears and his mouth and his throat, and he almost sobs.No, no, that’s not, that’s not possible. I don’t.Bucky removes the muzzle around his nose and mouth (a goddamn fuckingmuzzle; his heart digs hard into his lungs, whatever’s left of them, at least). His hair is long, when Tony had only seen it short. His eyes are sunken, narrow, gaunt but still the same blue-grey, the same colour of a still sea before a storm. He is a pale, feverish shade of the boy that Tony met in 1938, hollow, like he’s sick, like he’s starving, and for a moment, they just stare at each other.Written for the Winteriron Bingo 2019 for the "Alpha/Beta/Omega" square (N4).





	last syllable of recorded time

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Macbeth.
> 
> Warnings: menstruation, omega heats involve period-like symptoms for a couple of days before the raging sex stuff, omega!Howard.

It hurts when he gets the arc reactor.

That’s an understatement.

He’d been in the middle of pre-heat when he’d been blown up in Afghanistan, so in the half-dark of his lidded eyes, the first thing that he notices is the blood caking his thighs (he’s woken up like this enough times, enough mornings to know what it is).

He tries to breathe, but it’s like fire in his chest, licking and slithering. He tries again, it’s worse and he chokes from the pain, the hot, ripe agony, and his fingers clench in the sheets, like he’d tear the threads apart if he could.

He tries to sit up, but stills when something stretches taut on his chest, and an ache swells. His hand comes to touch his chest, and his fingers scrabble against metal, wires, thick, dry blood, the colour of red-black, and he wheezes, panic clawing up his throat.

He turns his head, and a man is sitting near the wall, in front of the crackling fire, a pot hovering over the crown of the flame, as he spoons the contents into a bowl.

Tony clutches at the wires, drags his hand down until he’s touching a large electromagnet on the table beside him. He lifts his eyes back to the strange man.

“What-” Tony swallows, and it hurts. “What did you do to me?” he accuses.

“Do to you?” the man almost sounds affronted, as he turns, his voice thickly accented. “I saved you.”

“There’s a…” he stammers. “There’s an electromagnet going inside me. That’s-that’s pretty fucking far from saving someone.”

The man’s face softens. “Believe me, it is better than the alternative.” He takes a deep breath and approaches Tony. “What is the last thing you remember?”

His eyes squeeze shut. “I… uh, I remember a bomb, my bomb, and it, uh,” his world flares up in fire. “it blew up, didn’t it?”

The man nods. “Shrapnel, messy thing. In the village I come from, we call it _the quick death_.” He cracks a half-smile. “It sounds better in Arabic,” he reassures. “But that electromagnet, it was the only way to stop the shrapnel from piercing your heart. Would you like to see?” he shakes a little flask, the clang of metal echoing. “It’s almost ingenious.”

“How deep…” Tony licks his lips. “How deep does it go inside me?”

“Not that deep,” he says. “An inch or two, no more. Deeper, and that may have killed you, rather than the shrapnel itself. And well,” his eyes drag up to the camera secured to the wall. “They need you.”

“For what?” Tony asks, warily. “And who’s _they_?”

“Your new customers, the Ten Rings.”

* * *

They waterboard him when he says no, a hand on the back of his neck pinning him down against a dirty trough, as equally filthy water fills his eyes and his nose and his ears and his mouth and his lungs.

The worst part, though, the worst part is when the blood stops coming, and he’s writhing there on bloodstained sheets, waiting for something, anything, empty and open and throbbing.

They don’t touch him, thank HaShem. He can see their eyes, hot and wanting, their hands shaking, like they want to crawl on top of him, shove their cocks inside him like he’s a wet fleshlight for their use.

But there are rules, you don’t touch bonded omegas. It’s a sin, no matter the religion, it’s worse than fucking a widow (he’s one now too, a widow, a widower), it’s worse than fucking a corpse. It’s whatever that makes alphas and omegas and bonding marks and soulmates; you fuck a bonded omega, against their will, and you can be reassured of your own death minutes later.

Nature doesn’t suffer bondings to be interfered with in any way.

So, he lies there, waiting and wanting.

 _Bucky_ , he thinks. _I want Bucky, I need Bucky, he’s the only one I want, he’s the only one he can. But he’s dead, he’s dead, I had a few nights with him, and he left me alone in this world._

Yinsen does as best as he can, the comforting scent of an older beta, wise and healthy, and he smooths back Tony’s hair, away from his damp brow, the flush on his face.

“My bondmate is dead,” he slurs, turning his head.

Yinsen’s face contorts with grief. “Ah,” he says, and that’s all he says.

“It’ll fade, the heat, I know, but…” Tony licks his lips. “Every time, this happens, all I think about is him, all the time we deserved, all the time we didn’t get. And now, I’m stuck here, and all I can think is that I might die, and I might be with him again. Isn’t that fucking sad?” he asks, sadly. “I only knew him for a few days, and I feel so empty.”

Yinsen’s hand clutches around his hard. “You’ll survive this, Tony. You’re strong.”

_I want him, give me him, and I can be strong._

* * *

The heat fades, and Tony gets back to work.

It’s like it never happens.

He doesn’t think about Bucky again.

Raza, the man who held burning coal to Yinsen’s face and threatened to take out his eye, is all he sees now.

* * *

The armour is ready, and so is he.

He climbs in, and Yinsen prods at the computer.

“Okay, say it again,” he instructs.

Tony takes a deep breath. “Forty-one steps straight ahead. Then sixteen steps, that's from the door, fork right, thirty-three steps, turn right,” he says, like clockwork.

“Yinsen! Yinsen! Stark!” come shouts from the other side of the wrought-iron door.

“You need to say something to them,” Tony tells Yinsen, patiently. “Stall them.”

“He’s speaking Hungarian. I don’t…” Yinsen trails off, the panic clawing up his face.

“For fuck’s sake.” Tony turns around and shouts, “one minute”, in Hungarian.

Yinsen stares at him for a moment. “I learn new things about you every day, Stark.”

Tony shrugs. “Always keep them questioning, that’s my motto.” He tilts his head in the direction of the computer. “Can you just…?”

Yinsen turns back to the computer and presses a button. The armour drops, just like that, heavy on Tony’s shoulders.

“Oh, my goodness,” Yinsen breathes, cocking his head. “It worked all right.”

Tony shrugs, satisfied. “It’s what I do,” he says, smugly.

“Let me… let me finish this,” Yinsen says.

Tony sees his hands shaking, and he licks his lips. “Initialise the power sequence.”

Yinsen nods, half to himself and half to Tony. “Okay.”

“Now, Yinsen.” Tony’s voice grows stern.

“Tell me. Tell me.”

“Function 11. Tell me when you see a progress bar.”

“It should be up right now,” Tony points out.

“Yes.”

Tony almost hangs his head. “Talk to me. Tell me when you see it.”

“Okay, good. Now, press Control I.”

Yinsen’s throat works. “Got it.”

“Okay, now, come over here and button me up.”

“Okay, all right.”

“Every other hex bolt,” Tony explains, gently.

“They’re coming!” Yinsen says, shooting a concerned, anguished look at the bolted door, which shudders.

“Nothing pretty, just get it done,” Tony soothes. “Just get it done.”

“They’re coming.”

“Make sure the checkpoints are clear before you follow me out, okay,” Tony warns.

“We need more time,” Yinsen whispers, eyes sheening over. “Hey.” Yinsen touches his jaw, unbearably soft. “I’m gonna buy you some time.”

Yinsen runs, and Tony feels his heart seize in his ribcage. “No, Yinsen!” he says, throat clenching in tight. “Stick to the plan!”

He doesn’t hear anything.

“Yinsen!” Tony shouts.

Nothing, just the sound of gunfire, awful, horrid gunfire that makes him imagine Yinsen, with bullet holes strewn across his thin body, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

“Yinsen!”

_Oh, please, please._

The armour falls away, and he steps out. He stomps forward; the rooms goes black, and he kills everyone in his path, until a familiar wave of scent floods his eyes and his nose and his ears and his mouth and his throat, and he almost sobs.

_No, no, that’s not, that’s not possible. I don’t._

Bucky removes the muzzle around his nose and mouth (a goddamn fucking _muzzle_ ; his heart digs hard into his lungs, whatever’s left of them, at least). His hair is long, when Tony had only seen it short. His eyes are sunken, narrow, gaunt but still the same blue-grey, the same colour of a still sea before a storm. He is a pale, feverish shade of the boy that Tony met in 1938, hollow, like he’s sick, like he’s starving, and for a moment, they just stare at each other.

“I don’t…” A hurt little noise escapes him. “I don’t understand,” he confesses.

Bucky stares back at him, unseeing, over-bright eyes and all.

“Omega,” he rasps, like he’s not used to talking, like he doesn’t use his throat, his tongue, his lungs.

Tony startles. He clutches at his stomach, which writhes like snakes.

“I thought your alpha was dead, Tony.”

Tony looks over Bucky’s shoulder, sees Yinsen hovering behind him, rifle in hand, streaked with blood (hopefully, not his) and panting.

“He is,” Tony whispers. “He’s… he’s supposed to be. I’m sorry,” he removes the helm just so he can pinch the bridge of his nose. “I don’t exactly know what’s happening here.”

“Omega,” Bucky repeats, his eyes dark and full of grief.

Tony reaches out, he touches Bucky over his cheek, and he startles, curling away from him.

Tony flinches.

“Bucky?”

Bucky’s brow knits. “Who the hell is Bucky?”

For a brief moment, Tony’s mouth is full of dirt, and he doesn’t know how to respond.

“You don’t…” Tony hesitates. “You know your name is Bucky, right?” he asks, carefully.

“I am,” Bucky exhales, staring down at his metal hand, the clean lines of his fingers. “I am the Asset.”

_That doesn’t sound good._

“Do you, do you remember me?” Tony asks, his heart, or whatever’s left of it, lurching in his chest.

Bucky blinks. “You are my omega,” he replies, haltingly.

_No, no, no, please. Don’t ruin this, don’t ruin this for me._

“I am, I am, but your name is Bucky, remember?” Tony reaches out for him, faltering just at the end. “You, uh, you had a friend, a best friend, you lived with him, his name was Steve.”

Bucky winces, his face crumpling.

“We met, don’t you remember? In 1938, that’s how you know I’m your omega. Don’t you, don’t you remember?”

Bucky shakes his head. “I don’t, I don’t understand. I don’t know what you’re saying,” he says, half-desperate.

Yinsen takes a step forward. “I think we should get out of here first, before you have this conversation,” he offers.

Tony swallows hard, sees the reason in what Yinsen says, and nods. “Okay, okay, let’s go.”

He clomps forward, just as Bucky holds up a hand to stay his progress. “Stay behind me,” he orders. “Most of them are dead, but I’d rather be careful than not.”

He offers Tony a hand, his flesh hand, keeping his metal hand tucked behind his back (as if Tony could shrink away from any part of him), in easy, unthinking familiarity, and he takes it.

He takes it.

* * *

He gets his heat in record time, most likely because of Bucky and his reappearance. Wherever Bucky was, whatever they were doing to him, whatever he was doing, it doesn’t seem to matter, because Bucky slips into his life well and easily enough, like a knife through butter (he stays on the periphery, as if he doesn’t think he’s worthy enough to be a part of it, which Tony thinks is stupid as fuck and has told him as such, but he can’t deny how sweet it is to have Tony just to himself for now, at least).

Pepper and Rhodey adore him, if only for the unfaltering smile that seems to pursue Tony now.

Obie, on the other hand, stares after Bucky like he’s leading a beast by a chain into a cage, like he thinks Bucky would escape a leash and savage him to death.

His disgust for animal analogies aside, Obie’s just protective.

But one night, after Tony’s stopped weapons’ production and taken enough grief for it for a day, he climbs into his cold sheets and wakes up to a horrible ache in his belly and something leaking between his thighs.

_Oh, for fuck’s sake._

“Tony?”

He looks up, and Bucky lingers in the doorway, uncertain.

“Hi,” he rasps, with a smile.

“You’re not well,” Bucky says, solemnly.

“How did you know?” Tony asks, confused.

“Your voice in the sky.” Bucky shrugs. “He said something was wrong, and I…” his brow knits. “I felt something.” He presses a fist against his heart. “In here, I felt something. I don’t know what, but-”

There’s a half-darkness to his gaze, grim and jagged, and it makes Tony’s heart flip in an unpleasant way, because he remembers Bucky’s smile, his laughing eyes, and hates HYDRA, hates them for taking that away from Bucky, who deserved so much more, who deserved everything ( _more than me_ , he thinks).

“I, uh, I got my heat,” Tony explains, shamefully (the last thing Bucky needs right now is him and his diabolical reproductive system).

“What is that?” Bucky asks, tilting his head.

Tony blinks. “Oh, well, basically, every three months, my reproductive system wreaks havoc on my life. Three days of uncontrollable bleeding, and then three days of me wanting to fuck everything in sight.”

Bucky’s jaw settles. “I don’t think I like that last part.”

Tony laughs (if any other alpha had said that to him, he might’ve punched them in the dick). “Yeah, I bet you wouldn’t,” he says, fondly.

“Why don’t I like it?” Bucky asks, frowning.

Tony sighs. “It’s complicated.”

_And I don’t want to make life worse for you by tying you down to me._

“Can I do anything for you?”

Tony’s throat works; he looks down at his sheets, slowly staining with blood. “No, I don’t think…” he hesitates for an agonising moment, because he’s weak and he’s an omega (his father always said the worst thing you can be in life is a weak omega). “You could, uh, you could get into the bed?” he tries.

It isn’t a palatable thing, he knows, considering he’s lying in blood, but his lungs squeeze in tight when Bucky dutifully pads over, peeling away his bedsheets. His eyes widen at the blood.

“I should take you to a doctor,” he says, determinedly.

Tony laughs. “It’s okay. I bleed a lot; it’s quite normal.” He rubs his hand over his face. “You don’t have to, you know, I know it’s gross-”

Bucky slips inside, curling onto his side, a slight tinge of red to his neck.

“Should I…” he motions as if he wants to embraces him.

“I can’t…” Tony bites his lip, shaking his head ( _no, no, I can’t drag him down, I can’t_ ). “I can’t touch you, you can’t touch me,” he insists.

“I won’t,” Bucky reassures. “I won’t. I just…” his flush heightens. “I just want to hold you, I just want you to feel better.”

“Oh,” Tony says, lamely. “Okay, then.”

Bucky is shy when he tentatively wraps his arms around him, nudging his nose against the thin, dark curve of Tony’s shoulder.

“Everything’s going to be just fine, Tony,” Bucky says, quietly, splaying a warm, big hand over Tony’s stomach, right where he aches. “I’m here now. I won’t leave you again.”

Tony has half a mind to start crying. He tilts his head into Bucky’s, boneless, brainless like this, with Bucky tangled all around him.

 _I’m half a heart without you_ , he thinks.

“Okay, then,” he says.


End file.
